Wins Above Replacement–League Leaders and the St. Louis Cardinals

It’s amazing to see Albert Pujols at the top of so many leaders list, so consistently. I think most of us that watched the games this year felt that something was a little off. On a side note, I don’t know if a player has ever spoiled the fans of a team like Pujols has Cardinal fans. He did have a career low in BA, his walks went down and his strikeout total of 76 was the highest since 93 in his rookie year. His OBP was .414, the lowest since the only time it has been under .400, when it was .394 in his second season.

And while this article is about the different categories of Wins Above Replacement(WAR), I thought I should point these facts out first, because despite this “below average” season, he still ranks #1 in today’s more prominent stats.

On a quick note, seeing Brendan Ryan tied for 5th on Defensive WAR cements more and more in my mind that if the Cardinals do upgrade a position with more power, it won’t be shortstop. I think they will give him another year to work out his offense because of how great he is on defense.

Here are the Cardinals and their WAR-all stats

—I’m not using every player here, I’ll do a breakdown on everyone and every category of WAR in another article coming up.